TIL

Use Dual Prefix to Prevent Accidental Ctrl+Z Suspend

Accidentally hitting Ctrl+Z in a tmux pane suspends the foreground process, which is rarely what you want. Instead of trying to rebind or disable Ctrl+Z at the application level, intercept it at the tmux level as a secondary prefix key.

set -g prefix C-s
set -g prefix2 C-z
bind C-s send-prefix
bind C-z send-prefix -2

Now Ctrl+Z becomes a harmless prefix key waiting for a second keystroke. If you hit it by accident, nothing happens until you press another key (or it times out).

Benefits:

• Prevents accidental process suspension
• Ctrl+Z still works as prefix for tmux commands
• No need to modify shell or application settings
• Easy to remember: both prefixes work identically